03.01 Creating a cake (WIP)
If you haven't learned how to create a basic prop, please do so here: 02.01 Introduction.
Creating the model
First, go to into Blender, select all objects [A] and delete them [DEL]. Press [SHIFT + A] and select Mesh->Cylinder. This is where we'll change the caliber of our cake. I'm planning on making a very basic peony cake, so I'll make it 30mm. On the right side in the Object Properties tab, set the scale to 0.03. To set the appropriate scale for the caliber, just divide the caliber in mm by a 1000. For example 20mm would have 0.02. Set it in all axes for now.
Of course you can see it's waaay too long, to change it press [S] and then scale along the Z axis [Z]. Move your mouse up and down to change the height of the tube. Then go into edit mode [TAB] and select the top of the cylinder with [LEFT CLICK] and then press [I]. Move your mouse to change the thickness of the tube. After you've found a good thickness, press [LEFT CLICK] again and press [E] and then move your mouse down almost to the bottom. If you put it too low or too high, you can press [G] and then [Z] to change it again. You can go out of Edit Mode again using [TAB].
Now, press [F3] and search for Shade Auto Smooth and press enter. This should make our tube look way smoother. Now, we just need to add more of them. I plan to make a 25 shot cake. This would mean, it's a 5x5 grid of tubes. Go into the Modifier Properties on the side where the object properties are (the wrench icon) and click Add Modifier, then look for Array and add it. Change the count to 5, and then add another array modifier, but change the factor from [1,0,0] to [0,1,0].
Once you're done, hover over the modifier and press [CTRL + A] to apply it. Do it for the other one as well. Once you're done, there should be no modifiers left.
Now you can see that the tubes are not in the center (the 3D cursor is the center of our object)
To fix it, select our tubes with [LEFT CLICK] (you can see it's selected if you see an orange outline around it). Now go into Edit mode [TAB] and press [SHIFT + S] and select Selection to Cursor (Keep Offset). Now our tubes should be in the center.
Next, we need to add a box around it. Press Shift+A and select Mesh->Cube. You can see it's very big, so scale it down using [S].
Now you can change it's size by pressing [S] and selecting seperate axes (by pressing [X], [Y], or [Z] after pressing [S]). In my case, I needed to scale it up so I pressed [S] and then [Z] and matched it. Note that you might need to move the box a little down by pressing [G] and then [Z] to make sure the bottom of our tubes isnt visible.
Now we need to apply transforms for both the tubes and the box. With the box selected, press [CTRL + A] and press Apply Transform. Do the same with the tubes. We're almost done! Now we just need to UV unwrap the cube - that means being able to put the label on it.
Video tutorial
UV Unwrapping
Go into the shading tab on top and then select UV editor from here.
With the UV editor tab selected, you should see our Cube UV basically done so we don't need to do much. We'll need to extract this UV to create a label for it. To export, press UV->Export UV Layout and export it wherever you want on your PC.
We'll also need to UV unwrap our tubes to make sure the cardboard textures looks good on them. First of all hide our main cube by pressing the eye icon of our box in hierarchy, then select our tubes with [Left Click] and go into edit mode [TAB] and select all [A] (make sure all of the tubes are outlined orange) then press [U] and select Smart UV Project. There's no need to Export the UV for the tubes.
Next we also need to add materials. With the tubes selected, go into Material Properties window and press New. Rename it to for example Cardboard. Next show our Box by pressing the eye icon in hierarchy again and select it. Add a material and call it for example Label. This should be it and we can go on to create our label.
Video tutorial
Creating a label
Hop in to your image editor of choice and create a new canvas, I usually create it with the size of 4096x4096. Import the UV map and scale it so it stretches across the entire canvas. Now you can start drawing or pasting in the label of the firework you're creating. Here's a guide for the directions:
Video Tutorial
Creating a label in GIMP by me
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